The Death of God
by absolute-insanity
Summary: The creator of the Incubators still sees use in the concept of puella magi. His scenario gains another twist; Phase 1 - Walpurgis Night. Phase 2 - Madoka Kaname. Phase 3 has now begun.
1. Preamble

-X-

A quiet garden, filled with flowers

It is a tomb.

* * *

Disappear, Drown and Die.

Beneath thus, blackened sky.

And in his home in Babylon, sleeps

The corpse of Lucifer.

But it cannot die, which can eternal lie -

And with strange aeons,

Even death may die.

* * *

Birds and insects play their tune

Broken statues of Cherubim at the door.

-X-


	2. Prologue I

**The Death of God**

* * *

_"Why would you do such a cruel thing as to throw your friend away, Madoka?"_

_-Incubator_

* * *

Prologue I

-X-

"Mommy, can I have ice cream later?"

The girl was smiling up at the female walking next to her. She opened her mouth to answer, but by then #C-3844-FX 'Karikatur' had already deemed the conversation meaningless. It stopped paying attention to their words, even though it kept on watching them like a hawk.

With a nigh imperceptible start, it received a data stream from its command base. It complied a second later.

Space tore itself apart next to it, but it paid the screeching no mind and kept its eyes on its quarry. All seemed to become silent again after a few seconds. There were two similar looking beings on the roof now, only distinguishable by the markings on their backs.

"We have received priority orders from Maxim-Actual."

This time the Karikatur _did_ startle and turned to look at the speaker. If it had the capability to do so, it would have frowned.

"It is time?"

The thing next to him was not a mere Karikatur, even though it looked similar - it was a #X-117 'Drache' - in its presence the Karikatur might as well be a mere grunt. Instead of answering, the thing just stared down at the family it had been watching. It looked thoughtful.

"The order itself came from further up. Maxim only relayed the message."

"Why would headquarters butt in on our operations?"

With an annoyed sneer, the Drache turned to its companion.

"Silence, worm. We were created to serve, and serve we shall."

The Karikatur wasn't cowed in the slightest, however. They all might have powers to defend themselves, but they were never meant for direct combat. They were no operatives like the more bulky #RD-08-FF 'DEVA', they were spy, infiltration and administration models. Just because Karikaturs generally didn't command the same authority and responsibility than the more advanced Drache models, didn't mean that it automatically had its personal respect. And such a thing showed, especially out in the proverbial 'battlefield' – no matter where that might be.

"Why now though? The circumstances are not yet ideal for maximum tragedy to occur to T83."

Even though the machines were arguing, they both obediently kept the family in their sights while jumping from rooftop to rooftop. They both came to a halt when they saw target callsign T83 stop at a souvenir shop with her parents.

Grudgingly, the Drache replied.

"It seems our plan was no longer efficient. We have been issued new instructions."

Karikatur expressed its agitation by shuddering for half a second.

"It still does not explain the scrutiny. Something is going on. If this is a cover up for one of their other operations, the new order will possibly affect the experiment in a detrimental fashion. I cannot enact phase #3 of operation 'GODDESS' on someone's whim alone."

Instead of arguing further, the Drache forwarded the new instructions to the Karikatur.

It blinked once. Twice.

_This is..._

"If these calculations are correct..."

"Yes. Indeed."

They both lapsed back into silence and watched T83 exit the shop with a new toy in hand.

"This changes everything."

The advanced model turned and started walking away.

"C-3844-FX, the operation is henceforth renamed into 'Taiji'. You are to enact phase #3 immediately and make modifications to the plan as ordered!"

"Acknowledged, Bravo-Actual," the Karikatur addressed the other machine by its callsign for the first time. It had whispered those words, still not over the disbelief the new predictions of the future had caused.

If those calculations were indeed accurate...

Then success was in their grasp. It could almost taste it on its nonexistent tongue.

"...it would certainly justify a change of plans."

This time, Karikatur did not follow T83 when she rounded a corner.

Its voice lost its human quality.

"Switching priority target from 'T5' to 'T83'. Renaming new priority target 'T83' into 'T1'. Recalling surveillance drones from location 'Japan'. Redeploying drones to location 'Ukraine', setting priority to location 'Pripyat'. Deploying DEVA squads 3 through 8. Enacting phase #3 of operation 'Taiji'. Relaying orders."

Within mere 3 seconds a shot rang out.

A second later T1's shrill scream echoed through the streets.

-X-


	3. Prologue II

**The Death of God**

* * *

_"Your ideals have no meaning. And if you can't drop them, then drown in them and _die_."_

_-Heroic Spirit EMIYA  
_

* * *

Prologue II

-X-

It happened in the middle of an empty and run down parking lot.

The place was ordinary, nobody would have normally given it a second glance.

However.

In the middle of the expanse lay a girl, her pants quiet enough as to be trivially easy to confuse for regular breathing.

Her body was broken, her clothing hiding scars conceived from years of abuse.

Blood pooled around her.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Her eyes had already lost their shine.

* * *

On the rooftop of one of the surrounding houses, two figures sat.

One was a great white wolf, even seated his height of 7 feet would awe any passerby.

Compared to it, the other white figure was a mere toy.

The Karikatur turned to the small subterfuge oriented #FF-83 'INCUBATOR' model.

"The next phase is already being deployed. Commence execution of orders at once."

The Incubator simply seemed to vanish.

* * *

Eyes were locked with the sky.

Gray clouds, sporadically broken up by overwhelming rays of light, burning the ground and illuminating the dust in the air.

"Do you want to be saved?"

The head of a toy filled her fading vision.

"I will fulfill one wish of yours."

She managed to blink and tilt her head to the right, looking at the creature. It took her a moment to realize that it was not actually a hallucination.

Her eyes went wide.

It stared back.

"If you tarry any longer, you will succumb to your injuries."

She was crying – even though she did not have the energy to make any sound. Her mouth parted slightly.

The toy turned to look directly at her, as if to impress the gravity of the situation on her.

"I gave you all the tools you need to survive. **So fight.**"

A manic gleam entered her eyes, some of her energy restored by adrenaline.

"-MY WISH IS-!"

* * *

Ash, thick and oily, filled the streets like a cloud. Bodies with their flesh melting off of them, corpses liquefying.

Animals and children with tumors the sizes of baseballs with limbs, tearing their host's meat apart from the inside.

An overwhelming presence in the air, whispering promises of death and decay into their ears.

A front row seat of feasting madness.

The very earth set ablaze, a darkness that seemed to extend up to the heavens, fire barely piercing the veil between patches of broken asphalt.

A fire that consumed rather than burned, a fire that tormented rather than killed.

Like snakes of living sludge it moved through the streets, writhing and coiling like a predator as it hunted.

In between the emptiness was a girl.

Pleading, the teeth set like those of a starved lion, she was staring up at the tear in space.

A black hole floated above the city, violating reality with its sheer presence.

It was constantly vomiting hundreds upon hundreds of liters of the black liquid into the city.

The girl reached upwards, her demented smile never leaving her face.

Darkness descended.

Had she been laughing? Had the fire been answering her?

But even as this apocalyptic event happened, her mind could not cope with the trauma she was still in the process of receiving.

And while her mind broke down, so did the presence fade.

Through it all, a small toy sat behind her, patiently waiting for the spectacle to end.

* * *

-X-


	4. Glass Fragments: Broken I

**The Death of God**

* * *

"What are we supposed to do?"

"Die."

-movie Independence Day, American president talking to an alien in Area 51

* * *

Act I: Glass Fragments

* * *

Theme music: Evangelion 2.0 OST Sin From Genesis (The Beast II)

(The theme music is what I had been listening on repeat while writing the chapter.)

Broken I

-X-

When the KGB had stormed into his apartment in the middle of the night and taken him hostage, he thought his time had come. Like most people he knew, he had smuggled food and other merchandise here and there to make ends meet – but it was kind of obvious that he would need to do that despite his qualifications. In a nation that paid more than twice as much to its engineers than its 'Intelligentsia' – that is its scholars like doctors and scientists – and had a chronic deficit of practically all wares, someone without vast connections had to somehow care for himself and his family.

The KGB – mad dogs just like the Gestapo was for the Germans – could just take anyone off the streets and do with them as they wished.

It did not, however, explain why they put him in a bare room with a _general_ of all things. He stared down at the Non Disclosure Agreement in front of him. After a few moments of silent shock at not being put into a prison or made an example of – he looked back up at the man who was quietly looking at him.

"Ummm- Could you at least tell me what this is about?"

"We are trying to keep this quiet, doctor. The only way out of this building in one piece is after you agreed to work with us."

He gulped and looked back down – the innocent paper seemed to mock him. There was no way out then. The doctor silently apologized to his wive and picked up the pen. It felt like agreeing to trade your soul with the devil when he signed it.

When immediately afterward somebody came in, picked the paper up and left again, it occurred to him that they were probably watching him with surveillance devices as well. He nervously felt a sweat drop slowly travel down the back of his head.

The man in front of him put his hand on the folder in front of him and slid it over to him. Blinking, quickly looking back and forth a few times as if to ask permission, the doctor picked up the item and opened it. Quickly skimming through the contents on the first page, he realized it was a report on the disaster in Ukraine from a few days ago. He simply nodded and turned the page. And when his eyes zeroed in on the only picture on the sheet, his jaw hit the floor. He looked up.

"_What?_"

The general just nodded grimly and gestured him to keep on reading. He quickly obeyed. His heart felt like it was moving further and further down his body the more he read. When he finally finished he dropped the folder back on the table as if it was on fire.

"We will need your expertise to deal with the situation, Mr. Vodovozov."

He seemed to want to continue but stopped when he saw the doctor sink his head into his hands.

"All this death, the destruction... Because of a little girl not even in her puberty? How can this be? This must be a joke. Some kind of sick joke you bastards delight in telling your prisoners, like the monsters you all are-"

"Doctor!" The general interrupted the quietly mumbling man when it seemed that he wouldn't be done anytime soon. "Pull yourself together!"

Vodovozov's head jumped up and he nodded, even though he still seemed to be looking at something beyond this room. The general continued, as if ignoring his frame of mind.

"At first we only had a core group of scientists and doctors trying to analyze how this could have happened, but they are stumped. So the brass decided to throw more intellectuals like _you,_" he spit out that word, "at the problem. But during one of the tests two doctors and one of the scientists were killed by the subject. So we are desperate enough to use Jews like you, of all things." The general sneered at him. Vodovozov just stoically nodded.

"You have one day to pack everything you need. My guys will come and get you tomorrow evening." The doctor just nodded again, his face carefully blank.

* * *

"Honey? What is going on?" She had never seen her husband like this. Not even when his parents had died had he been this traumatized.

At first she had been scared witless when the KGB had come to drag her husband away – now she didn't know what to do anymore when he had simply walked up the street and back into their house, sat down in the kitchen in only his underwear and begun drinking. He had already a full bottle of vodka lying on the ground behind him and drinking his second one as if it was a bottle of water and he had been lost in a desert.

He didn't so much as acknowledge her. So she ran up to him, ripped the bottle from his hands and threw it on the ground. Taking his head in both her hands, she forced him to look at her.

"What did they do? What happened? Please talk to me!" She was crying, she realized in some distant part of her mind.

He seemed to imitate a fish on land for a few seconds before quickly wiping at his eyes with his right hand.

"Huh."

"Don't you 'huh' me!" She screamed at him. Didn't he realize how scared she was?!

"Hm." The doctor gently pried her hands off his face and made her sit down on his lap, burying his head in the nape of her neck. She immediately hugged him for all he was worth. It took him some time longer to formulate a coherent response.

"They."

"They?"

"They want me to work for them."

"What?!" She almost jumped, but he was holding her tightly. "Why would they-?!"

She stopped talking when she realized that he was crying. She had never seen him genuinely shedding tears. "Honey? What did they _do_? Why? Why would they do something like this? Why-?"

He forced her to look at him and kissed her. She desperately kissed back.

* * *

He sighed once more and wiped a dirty lock of hair back up his forehead. It had been a long drive from Odessa to the middle of nowhere – it seemed to be some kind of military installation in a mountain. At least he thought it was – maybe the entrance was in a mountain but they had been driving for so long it might as well have been kilometers further somewhere underground.

"We are here, doctor." He looked up and realized that they had reached a checkpoint with several cars, a few Humvees and even a tank in between. He just sighed inwardly and exited the vehicle, almost running into a soldier who had made to open the door. He just stepped back and pointed back at the door in the wall, protected by soldiers on both sides. "Please follow me, Mr. Vodovozov."

The doctor pulled his suitcase from where it had been lying on a seat next to his and followed the man.

From the frying pan into the fire, as the saying went.

* * *

"So this is her?"

He was looking through bullet-proof glass at the girl from the picture he had seen, lying naked on what looked to be a re-purposed operating table with several figures in hazmat suits positioned around her, carefully checking her over with Geiger counters.

"What are they doing?"

The female doctor next to him was nervously chewing her pen while also watching the procedure like a hawk his prey.

"Have you been informed of what happened a few days ago?"

"Some kind of accident? She had killed a few people here."

"Yes." She pointed at the girl with the pen. "Since then our Geiger counters have been constantly fluctuating, although this phenomenon seems to be dissipating again." He hummed as a response.

"Any idea what it was?"

She grimaced. "Our best guess is..."

"Is?"

"Magic."

"What?" He turned to look at her. "You can't be serious! This is the best you could come up with? This-"

"Vodovozov!" She was looking back at him, annoyed at his protest. "If you have a better theory, we are all ears!"

He just swallowed what he wanted to say and looked back at the girl.

There was silence for a few minutes more before he started talking again.

"You think the reason why she was the only survivor in that disaster from a month ago was magic?"

She sighed and started to scratch the side of her head.

"We don't know. The only thing we _do_ know is that what happened then was _not_ the result of the explosion of a nuclear power plant." His eyes widened and he looked back at her again.

"You are kidding. Are you saying that catastrophe was her doing?!" He pointed at the seemingly ten year old girl.

"Your incredible amount of insight flatters you, Jewish-pig." She put her pen back in her mouth. He swallowed his answer again and looked back at the glass. It took him a few seconds more to formulate his next sentence.

"So, why am I, an eye doctor of all things, here?" She grumbled something under her breath. Picking up a folder lying at her side, she handed it to him. He wordlessly accepted and opened it. His right hand immediately flew up to cover his mouth in a sign of dismay at what he saw there. The walls were covered in blood with the corpses of three different people covering every surface of the laboratory in small chunks. He swallowed and turned the page. More pictures of that scene. The surveillance cameras had been placed in more than just the corners of the room and one had been able to record the face of _that thing_. It looked like a demented beast, its mouth wide open and saliva freely dripping down. But more importantly...

He put his right index finger on the picture and traced the contours of her eyes. Next to the picture was a portrait of the girl when she was docile. Her eyes were a dull uninteresting brown. But in the first picture...

"What _is this_?" He seemed to ask nobody as he watched the corrupted-white slit for a pupil and the rest of the eyeball a complete midnight black.

"That is what you are here to find out, _doctor._" She mocked him in a condescending tone.

* * *

He and his two dozen colleagues were sitting around a table in a darkened room A projector was showing the latest results of one of the scientists, who was pointing out different things with his pen light and explaining what they meant. When he finally finished, he gave the pen light to Vodovozov and set back down. He stood up. Quickly putting his right hand through his hair – he hadn't had the time to wash himself in several days – he put in his own picture in the projector. It showed a vertical slice of a normal human eyeball and and one of what they had simply continued calling 'the subject'.

The difference was immediately obvious, even to the people in the room who had never been interested in eyes themselves.

"On the left side you can see what a normal human eye would look on the inside. The right one shows, highlighted, a few spots who differ greatly. After carefully examining the substance, I have still not come to a final conclusion on what it is." He swallowed. "But I have noticed another important fact. As you all know," He put in the next page, which still showed both pictures but also two diagrams below them. "The amount of radiation we could record emanating from the subject is constantly decreasing. This progress is visualized on the left diagram here, "He put the point light to use. "And the right side shows a diagram of the amount of black mass inside her eyeballs over the last few weeks."

The two diagrams were perfectly identical. Immediately murmuring started. Vodovozov simply continued talking.

"So I tried to find out how a radioactive substance of unknown origin got into its body in the first place. After I examined her eyes and studied other medical reports, I have come to the conclusion that the substance, which I have come to call U.R.S. for the time being – which simply means Unknown Radioactive Substance – has neither been inserted from the outside of its body, nor from inside. The outside of the eyeballs are perfectly intact, leading me to believe that it came to be inside of the eyeballs in the first place."

He quickly handed the pen light to another colleague, who put in the next page.

"After I had realized that pain was the primary factor in triggering the berserk episode a few months ago, I had been able to successfully sedate the subject and cut a small piece of skin off of it. It had already regrown before the drugs wore off." He coughed. "With this realization, me and doctor Vodovozov were able to extract a small amount of U.R.S. from its right eye. We were, however, not able to examine it, as it acts in a way we never imagined. He nervously put pointed at the picture on the page, which showed a hole in a table. He put in the next page and it showed that the hole kept continuing even through the floor. "U.R.S. is the most devastating acid known to man. Half a milligram of it was able to eat a hole through ten feet of concrete before it was finally depleted. Even more interesting, however, was the realization that the obviously chemical reaction did not leave any byproducts whatsoever, it is as if both the substance and the concrete simply vanished into thin air." The murmuring started again, this time louder.

"How were you able to get this substance from its eye to the table in the first place, then?" Asked one of the scientists.

"It seems like the denser the material U.R.S. is reacting with, the longer it needs to eat through it. Thank god for at least something logical about this!" He coughed again. "Since U.R.S. doesn't seem to react to the subject's body at all, we were able to let it drip out of a small hole in here eye onto an improvised petri dish made from industrial diamond." He pointed the pen light at the top of the picture with the top of the table, which also showed the petri dish with a hole in the middle. "U.R.S. had needed one mere second to eat through half a centimeter of industrial diamond." The silence was almost deafening. Nonplussed, the two doctors sat down and thus emptied the stage for the next scholar.

"I had been experimenting with the realization that the berserk incident was caused by making the subject feel pain. How much pain is needed? Can we somehow prevent it from happening? So, using different amounts of sedatives and pain killers, or none at all, I have been subjecting it to different levels of pain. Everything between a small paper cut, up to cutting off square inches of skin." The doctor put in the next page on the projector. "Predictably, this caused more berserk incidents, but with the necessary precautions nobody was hurt." The doctor sitting next to Vodovozov complained out loud.

"I could feel the earth quakes two stories up! I could barely work under these circumstances!" They had all had trouble with it. Vodovozov could only nod along.

"Unfortunately, this had to be done. We need to be sure of all the details on what is causing these berserk episodes and make sure Pripyat does _not_ happen again! You must realize that the motherland's first order of business is not to find out how it happened, or how to weaponize the subject or some naïve shit like that. Our first order of business is to make sure that no more people come to harm!" He angrily wiped at his eyes. Their nerves had been running high for over five weeks in a row now. Between the screams, the earth quakes, and the constant danger of another Chernobyl disaster right on top of them most of them had to fight nightmares constantly.

"I am currently in the process of creating a contraption that can instantly render the subject unconscious and stop any such incident from happening again." He showed the next page, which contained the picture of what looked like a baton with two needles on top. "Theoretically, if you administer enough pain at once, the subject should fall unconscious like a normal human. This baton will pump enough electricity into its body to kill a normal human. With the subject's healing factor however, it will not die. Hopefully this will be the answer we needed." He stepped from the stage and gave the point light to the last human who hadn't spoken yet in the room. She stood up and walked to the stage.

"I was constantly analyzing the skin samples you all have been supplying me with" – She nodded at Vodovozov – "and I have come to the undeniable conclusion that the gear they have supplied us with is absolutely not sufficient. To make accurate guesses, we need better machines than the typical Russian trash which is already broken when delivered from the factory." Vodovozov couldn't quite hold back a snort. "The authorities have revealed to me that a bunker with modern equipment is being built as we speak. More importantly, of course, it's being build far away from the border and also far away from civilization." Vodovozov sighed in relief. This gave him the opportunity to ask for a vacation from the constant danger. He could see his wive again!

"Since I have not been able to properly study the subject, I have been in contact with a few of my colleagues from the institution I have been working in and we have had another realization that led to another breakthrough in understanding what happened." She slowly breathed in and out. This was not going to go over well.

"-The way the subject acts is the same way that any gravely abused human reacts after being mentally broken again and again." Everyone in the room was gaping at her. "This leads to the conclusion that somewhere inside _**her**_ head, the subject is still human and since she is not a vegetable, has the capability to mentally 'heal' again."

* * *

When the KGB had brought the psychiatrist Vladimir Solovyov to some secret bunker to the north of Russia and far away from civilization, he had not been impressed. Neither was he amused at the joke they had been telling him constantly, about some mere _girl_ causing the Chernobyl disaster by herself. Either the security at the nuclear power plant had been taking an overdose of hallucinogens while at work or everyone had while telling him why they needed his help. A girl had supposedly summoned some black substance and swallowed half the city! Even going so far as to classify the supposed abhuman a _witch_. Preposterous. Or the way they needed his help to also screen the scientists and doctors there since for some reason being in the presence of that black substance, dubbed U.R.S., for a prolonged period of time, caused despair, feeling of tiredness and nightmares, leading to two different workers committing suicide at almost the same time just a week ago.

Wonderful.

The grimace never left his face, even after hours of driving.

* * *

Solovyov nervously kept trying to get a non-violent reaction from the unmoving figure on the bed in front of him. The last night had been filled with nightmares _again_. If this continued in the same vein then he would burn out before the month was over.

He sighed and put the black and white pictures on the table next to him. Well, it had been worth it to try, at least. The doctor tried to pick up the glass of water next to it without looking, but instead only brushed the glass, eliciting a dull sound from it. He suddenly stilled.

Solovyov turned to the glass and gaped at it. A grin soon followed.

* * *

"Unbelievable, doctor. Truly well done." Said the senior doctor next to him. They were both standing behind a wall of bullet-proof glass, looking at the witch. They had put a speaker in the room and were alternating between playing soothing and annoying, quiet and loud sounds and music. By doing this for over a day in a row, they had finally been able to get their first reaction out of the subject. She had blinked. It didn't sound like much, but it was a breakthrough, as they were now sure that the witch was slowly mentally healing from whatever had happened to her before the Chernobyl disaster.

"It is only a matter of time before we can restore her to the point where she will be able to control herself. The U.R.S. phenomenon should cease tormenting us before long. Hopefully we will be able to work properly afterward."

The doctor next to him was too busy wiping his forehead with a handkerchief to answer.

They both were unable to perceive the toy sitting on Solovyov's right shoulder, watching the girl in the other room.

* * *

Astounding! This was incredible! They had finally done it.

Solovyov was staring at the witch's hand, which had grabbed his right sleeve right as he was about to stand up and leave. She was showing obvious reactions to the outside world, even going so far as to demonstrate at least rudimentary deduction skills!

He gently put his left hand on her's. He had to tell everyone about this!

And with a ripping sound, the witch tore off a piece of his lab coat. He just stared at it, immitating a fish on land. Very carefully stepping back, he still kept the girl in his sights. She had demonstrated absolutely inhuman strength – fear surged within him. He tried to stay calm, but having been exposed to the U.R.S. phenomenon for a month now didn't help his frame of mind and he couldn't quite block a feeling of hysteria bubbling up within him. So he hurriedly walked backwards and threw over the chair he had been sitting on. He completely stilled when the sound made the girl twitch.

Then she turned her head to look at him. And he suddenly realized that he had seen that expression of hers in one of his nightmares. Solovyov was again unable to keep himself in check and let out a short fearful scream.

The door to the lab was thrown open, and a soldier with a modified baton was standing there, quickly analyzing the situation. The witch had obviously attacked the doctor, and needed to be put down.

So he ran up to her, ignoring Solovyov's weak protest and shoved the baton into her stomach. This would be the first use of the prototype baton.

And its last.

* * *

A being inside Elizabeth stirred. It had no direction and no orders. No one was answering its calls. It did not know what to do.

One day, it realized that somebody on the outside had been trying to communicate with it, so it tried to somehow communicate back.

And then, pain.

It did not know how to react to it. It did not know how to react to most feelings. Not quite understanding what the surplus of electricity in its body meant, it tried to think of answers. Some kind image appeared in front of it: Her (her?) being tortured with electricity.

Suddenly it realized what the pain meant.

And this pain?

This pain it knew **very well.**

* * *

The witch's body reared up in protest and her face silently seemed to scream, even if no sound came out. The soldier slowly drew back, taking the baton with him.

Solovyov's hysteria suddenly doubled when he realized that _she wasn't falling unconscious._ He started walking backwards, but then his eyes betrayed him and he took a look at her face again.

Her pupil was white and slitted.

Cold sweat immediately broke out and he was right about to turn around and run out of the room when the soldier decided to be proactive and slammed the front end of the baton into her stomach again.

She reared up further, mouth ripped open, but no sound coming out.

The doctor kept looking at her eyes and therefore noticed when when the rest of the eyeball was quickly dyed black by what seemed to be tentacles like ink beneath her skin. He had barely enough time for his eyes to widen after he realized that the U.R.S. was not stopping at her eyes and started coloring the rest of her body when suddenly there was an explosion and blood everywhere.

* * *

The witch's right arm had broken the sound barrier when it attacked the soldier. Upon contact, his chest seemed to explode in all directions and a fountain of blood was thrown around, even as his body was thrown at the wall and seemed to burst a second time, his internal fluids painting a grotesque picture along the concrete wall.

She was standing on the table, the black ink slowly moving further outwards. But more importantly, the shivering doctor realized while lying on the ground with his hands around himself, was that the U.R.S. was being secreted from her skin as if it was a saturated sponge overflowing with it.

He wasn't even granted a chance to scream.

* * *

"What? What is happening?" Doctor Ivanova was frantically asking the soldier in front of her who she had found running down the hall. Just a minute ago the klaxons in the base started blaring, activated from the camera surveillance room.

"We don't know, doctor. Please evacuate immediately!" Was all he said before running off again in the direction of the stairs, which lead down, deeper into the complex. She swallowed and turned in the other direction, but something stopped her. What if they needed her help?

Goddamn it.

She turned around and ran towards the control room, remembering the layout of the facility.

The entire base was built beneath a mountain fifty miles south of the Mityushikha Bay, known to have been the detonation site of the Tsar Bomb.

The first level was a strategic defense area, filled with tanks and soldiers around the clock, facing both inwards and outwards. The second level were the barracks and living quarters of the staff. The third level down was the control room and the working space, including most laboratories. The fourth level was another defense point, all of it facing further down the complex. And even further down, separated by a one hundred meter long choke point between the fourth and the fifth level, lied the living space and laboratory of the subject.

She hoped it would be enough.

* * *

Vodovozov coughed quickly, before continuing.

"As you can see here –" He used the point light to show the onlookers what he was talking about. "– After numerous tests me and some of you have come to the conclusion that the U.R.S. inside the witch is slowly moving towards a focal point right above her navel." The picture showed an up-to-date x-ray pattern of the subject and one could clearly see a black hole below her stomach where the U.R.S. seemed to have eaten the very x-ray radiation. "Following that process for a while, we have come to another realization. It seems like the U.R.S. gets excited the further away it is from her body." He put in the next picture, which showed a dozen different tests with the substance. "While inside her body, it is inactive and has no effect on her. Outside her body, it is more than a million times as corrosive as fluoroantimonic acid. It passes through diamonds in the fraction of a second and concrete might as well not be there. While recording the progress of the substance through different materials, it seems to literally fall through almost all of them." The doctor paused for a second. Most of the people in the room already knew what he had said until now. "But here is why I have called you all together. We were able to determine what happens when U.R.S. is outside her body, but still touching her. Until now, we had only tested miniscule amounts of that substance on her, but when enough of it is concentrated in an area, it starts to change her." He had to wait for the quarter of a minute for the resulting murmurs to subside. He put in the next page and it showed two pictures. The first one contained the view of a small tattoo on her skin, which looked like a small curvy line. "We believe it is some kind of defensive mechanism, as U.R.S. does not seem to damage her body, but infuse its outside against outside influences. There seems to be only one exception to this." He pointed at the second picture, which showed her white-slitted black eyes. "For some reason, it also changes the structure of the subject's eyes, turning them into some kind of predator hybrid."

He would have continued, but then the klaxons started screaming across the base.

* * *

It finally realized that its instincts were the orders it was given. What it was meant to do.

That which was in pain reacted on pure instinct. Its right hand punched forwards and into that thing which dared bringing pain. An instant later, it was already standing up, ready to defend itself, its teeth bared. Unfortunately, with the collapse of its creator it had also lost its sight. Without any means to analyze its surroundings, it could not properly defend itself, so it started a basic system scan.

A moment later it realized what some of the sensations it was feeling were. It seemed like those two globes of flesh on the top of her body were meant to receive and interpret electromagnetic radiation; a second later it had already internalized the process and committed the action to instinct. A look across the room yielded it with more information than it had received in months – it was however not overwhelmed even for an instant and already on top of the thing in front of it, ripping its head off.

It blinked once when it realized that two different things on its upper limb were analyzing the vibrations in the air, which also lead to the question why it had suddenly realized thus.

It looked up and noticed a red quickly turning light coming from some kind of device on the ceiling. It took it an instant to rip it off.

The door was thrown open.

There was again a loud sound and something _fast_ evaporated when coming in contact with the black skin in between its eyes. It devoted another instant to comprehending that whatever just touched her would have brought more pain if it wouldn't have come in contact with its power.

Its instincts started to _roar_.

* * *

Doctor Vodovozov threw open the door to the control room.

"What is going on?!" He moved quickly to the panel filled with hundreds of different screens showing every nook and cranny of the base. He only peripherally realized that there was a female doctor standing next to him, also starring at the screens, when he realized what was happening.

The witch was on a rampage. Corpses littered both the living quarters/laboratory she had been kept in and the entire hallway up to the fourth level. She was currently ripping a soldier apart in the air.

Fighting through his gagging reflex, he was able to note that black lines of ink were moving further and further outwards from her eyes. They had already swallowed her entire head and shoulders.

When he saw bullet wounds opening and quickly closing again all over her body, he also realized that all they were accomplishing was to enrage the witch further...!

* * *

A grenade exploded beneath her feet and took off both her legs. It did not matter. She dug her finger into the ground and threw herself at the closest soldier, moving so fast she seemed to blur in midair.

By the time the witch ripped his chest open her legs had already regenerated.

She realized that she was in an open space with some kind of structure moving to face her –

A tank shell came into contact with her only partially U.R.S. covered chest. While most of the projectile just seemed to disappear on contact, the sheer shock wave threw her head over heels back down the corridor.

There was silence.

A soldier bravely stuck his head from behind a barricade and looked down the hall way.

"Did we kill it?"

* * *

Pain. All it suddenly knew was pain.

There was so much damage inside of it, it could barely concentrate enough to remove the shrapnel from the inside of its body using its power. After writhing on the ground for over a dozen seconds, it was finally coherent enough again to comprehend what had happened.

Some kind of weapon had hit it, but its power seemed to be effective in protecting it against it. So it willed its power forth, even at the cost of increasing the pressure from this _other_ inside of it.

* * *

"Oh my god."

Vodovozov could only nod as an answer to his colleague's assessment. The witch now had a layer of U.R.S. all over her body over an inch thick on average, the only places not covered were her palms and soles of her feet so she was still able to stand and grab.

"Something like this has never happened yet. We should evacuate!"

But neither him, his colleague or the commander shouting orders into a microphone in front of them reacted to his words.

* * *

The witch moved at speeds the soldiers could barely perceive as she moved like a bullet at and then _through_ the tank in the middle of the room. Steel and flesh simply evaporated on contact, even faster than she was moving. Her charge left behind the lower half of the soldier in the driver's seat, still spurting blood everywhere.

Bullets simply disappeared on contact, grenades had no effect besides removing parts of the floor, even the direct hit from a rocket launcher had no effect. When the death toll reached beyond two dozen the commander finally ordered a fighting retreat from the lower levels.

He snarled; he wanted to collapse the level the witch was on but the construction of the base had been a rush job. Detonating the charges placed in key positions all over the base meant bringing down the mountain on top of them...!

Stoically, he turned around and face the two doctors behind him.

"Is there anything we can do to stop this thing?"

The woman just slowly shook her head.

"Well..." Vodovozov quickly exhaled. "It seems like the witch is only reacting to outside stimuli. So maybe if we would just stop shooting at her –"

"Oh god." He was interrupted by his colleague when she realized that the girl was moving towards their location. The commander quickly turned around and realized the same.

He only hesitated for a second before ripping off a key hanging around his neck. He put it inside a lock on the panel and a red button started blinking.

He turned around to face the doctors again and looked Vodovozov in the eyes.

"If we are unable to stop the witch, collapse the base. We cannot allow that thing to escape!" The commander didn't even wait for his answer before pulling out his gun and leaving the room.

* * *

The commander barely dodged another leap from the witch and quickly rolled back to his feet. It seemed as if shooting at her face seemed to have gotten its attention alright-!

He was trying to lure her directly into the upper choke point, but that seemed easier said than done as he barely evaded another of her jumps by throwing himself to the side. It didn't matter how fast the witch was when you had already dodged before her feet left the ground!

When he finally moved through the final doors he threw himself to the ground and hundreds of bullets immediately filled the air above his head.

He didn't take his hands away from the top of his head before he heard a rocket detonate behind him. The commander chanced a look backwards and seeing only smoke and debris, rolled to the side and jumped to his feet, quickly pointing his gun back at the entrance.

* * *

Vodovozov numbly stared at the witch, now covered with so much U.R.S. that she barely seemed humanoid anymore.

"They cannot hope to stop her." He quietly commented.

Suddenly the doctor next to him started laughing. Turning around, he realized that she had fallen into hysteria – the pressure must have gotten to his colleague. He could not fault her.

He also made no move to stop her when she leaned forward and pressed the button.

* * *

It had not yet been able to stand up fully before millions of tonnes of rock came crushing down on her. With a panicked movement it realized that far more mass was moving down on top of it than it could constantly destroy for a longer period of time.

It would be in pain! And it wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

That was unacceptable.

With a silent roar, it unleashed as much power as it could all at once. It disintegrated enough mass that it was finally no longer being crushed.

With a final, horrible realization, it also noticed that it could no longer hold back the pressure inside of it.

And suddenly, all was light.

* * *

-X-


	5. Glass Fragments: Broken II

**The Death of God**

* * *

_Now she understood, now, truly, she understood._

_What she was doing… was _unforgivable_._

-Louise de la Valliere, _fanfiction_ An Acolyte of Zero, chapter 8

* * *

Broken II

-X-

Dmitri Timofejewitsch Jasow was not a happy man. At all. As the minister of defense, Jasow was responsible for Operation Witch and obviously keeping it _quiet_ from the public. _Not_ doing the equivalent of writing all the details on a sign, attach neon lights to it, and parade it around Moskow!

"I should have you shot for your incompetence! I learned about this from the newspaper! The FUCKING ****newspaper****!"

"Sir, please calm down! We lost all contact to the research base barely an hour ago – "

"I don't care if it was yesterday or tomorrow, you piece of shit! I will – "

"General! The general secretary is on the phone."

It was a monumental task to quench his anger beneath his will, but he prevailed. Jasow hadn't experienced such a cluster fuck since Operation Anadyr in Kuba.

He slowly took the phone from its resting place on his desk and put it to his ear.

"Dmitri? Comrade."

"Comrade Gorbatschow."

"Please, do explain what is going on."

The general secretary's voice was slightly _trembling_. He was _mad_. Jasow swallowed.

"Today at approximately thirteen o'clock Code Red was issued from Project Witch. A few minutes later Code Black followed. At the time our satellite and long range watchtowers recorded the successful collapse of the mountain on top of the base." The general nervously adjusted his collar.

"...Yes?"

"And then the Chernobyl Disaster seems to have repeated itself. The entire mountain excreted black miasma."

"If that had been everything, then no one would have noticed it at such a remote location."

"Yes, sir."

"Well?"

"Shortly after the black miasma appeared, a nuclear device was set off inside the base. It had an approximate yield in excess of seventy megatons and is therefore a magnitude stronger than the Tsar Bomb."

There was a moment of silence between them.

"Can you explain to me why there is a crater the size of Moskow to our north?"

"Sir, I will personally inform you of all the information as it will be coming in."

"See that you do. And resolve this mess, or I will see your head on a pike."

The general kept listening to the beeping sound for a few seconds longer before nervously putting the phone back and closing his eyes.

"Your orders, sir? Shall I issue a media black out?"

"No. No..." Jasow pondered with his right hand covering his mouth. "Hmm. Maybe we can twist this to our favor."

* * *

"Sir, please turn on the television. The minister of defense is about to deliver a speech."

Wiktor Michailowitsch Tschebrikow barely looked up from the Project Witch files he was studying for the third time in a row, but used the remote regardless.

"My comrades! This is a wonderful occasion for our proud nation. Today, we have again demonstrated our military superiority – "

"Is that retarded swine serious?" Tschebrikow couldn't believe his ears. _This was the best thing Jasow could think of?_

_As long as people like him are in power, the USSR is destined to fall. _He very carefully did not say out loud.

"Sir?"

The chairman of the KGB shook his head.

"How is the quarantine proceeding?"

"The army has successfully surrounded the crater from a safe distance and all the moles we are shadowing have been fed false information."

"I want all the relevant reports on my desk yesterday. Dismissed!"

The Tsar Bomb had been scheduled on mass media months in advance! Who was brain dead enough to believe the defense minister's words?!

Well, besides the public of course.

* * *

The explosion had occured beneath a mountain; it had rained pieces of rock from the size of pebbles up to the size of houses for hours afterwards. As such, the entire landscape even miles around the crater was looking like the surface of the moon.

_Well_, thought Boris Konstantinov, _I had always wanted to visit the moon once, even though this is a hellhole._

He was standing on a hill barely half a mile from the crater, looking through a spyglass at the thick black cloud of miasma extending a full one hundred feet above him. To become a general, one needed exceptionally good connections in the communist party. It was no wonder then that he had been able to get into Project Witch when applying himself for this position and hand picked almost every single soldier who had worked in there. The commander of the base had been his friend.

Not stopping to look through the spyglass, he extended his right hand and Kirill Gusarov, his aide, placed a hot cup of chocolade in it.

Even indulging in his secret pleasure couldn't quite calm him down. Goddamnit.

The defense minister himself had ordered him to pick the most competent doctors and scientists to work here, which had forced him into hiring jews! Jews!

He swore they had somehow caused this.

Now that he thought about it, they must have caused Chernobyl too. He would have the KGB look into it.

The general didn't let any of his musings show on his face.

"How is the progress?"

"Still none, Sir." Supplied Kirill instantly, also watching the cloud in the distance nervously. "No matter what substance they introduce into the gaseous U.R.S., it just evaporates. It doesn't matter if it's plastic, iron, steel or diamond."

"What a shit eating goat fucker of a brain dead rat!" Boris growled under his breath. "Why isn't the ground itself corroding then? I swear, most of you idiots are even more retarded than any jew next door!"

What was he supposed to do now?! He barely had enough time to sigh before the backpack sized mobile phone on Kirill's back started to beep. His aide immediately turned his back to him. The general hesitated another two seconds before he put the spyglass away and picked up the receiver.

There were very few people who could call him on his private line.

"Sir?"

"General Konstantinov?"

"Yes, Comrade Jasow."

"You were supposed to call when progress was made." Boris ruthlessly suppressed a gulp.

"No progress has been made, Sir." There was silence for a few seconds on the line.

"Explain."

"The huge cloud of U.R.S. annihilates any substance. Iron, steel, diamonds, it doesn't matter. We haven't found a way to extract Subject Witch yet." Again, silence.

He already thought Jasow was going to explode on him when the defense minister started talking again.

"Unfortunately, our time has been cut short. We need to uphold our cover story, and having a full regiment around the detonation site is suspicious."

"What are you saying, Sir?"

"I am calling you and your soldiers back to Moskow. Leave only a token military presence there, just enough to warn us when the cloud starts to disperse."

"Yes, Sir!" Jasow terminated the connection.

_Well, _thought the general, _at least I won't have to fix this shit, a small mercy but not unwelcome._

* * *

It was one year later when the cloud had finally dispersed enough for people in simple hazmat suits to enter the crater. The two soldiers, being rotated every month and checking the constistency of the cloud every day, called the superior they were both loyal to.

Unfortunately for the Russian authorities, Boris had been planning to desert the military along with his company of soldiers for over two months now and had only been waiting for this moment.

When two days after the last contact a task force visited the outpost to check in on the soldiers, they found both it and the crater empty.

On the same day Tschebrikow had to quit his job as the chairman of the KGB, stating that (while having a gun pointed at his head) he wanted to concentrate on being a member of the polit office. Wladimir Alexandrowitsch Krjutschkow took his place.

In the resulting confusion and inefficiency of command Boris was able to slip away.

* * *

This had been one of his best ideas yet, thought Konstantinov. Who knew that playing Russian mafia in Sri Lanka could be so lucrative? Being an important trading center between west and south east asia and with all the tourism, his coffers kept refilling no matter how much he was spending. He could only laugh at his supposed comrades in Russia eating dog shit every day.

He took another sip from his fruit cocktail and turned away from the sight of the ocean and looked at his three wives tanning in the sun.

Yeah, fuck them all.

"Sir?"

With a scowl on his face he turned to see his aide walking up to him.

"What is it?"

"Jayaraman has finally paid up."

"Ah!" A grin was back on his face. "Excellent."

Gusarov stayed there silently for another minute, just watching his boss watch the sea, before Boris got curious enough to ask.

"Is there something on your mind, Kirill?"

"Sir", he swallowed, "was it wise to take the Witch with us here? What if Russia comes looking for her? What if Code Black happens again?"

The disgraced general chuckled under his breath. "Nonsense! Code Black happens only as a reaction toward a provocation and our old friends will not dare to move against us. Not just because we have a weapon of mass destruction, we also got enough dirt on them to drown them in it."

"But still, keeping that monster here..."

"You are worrying too much, son."

Kirill just stood there, eying his boss with narrowed eyes.

* * *

Well, this was it, then. _Yeah, fuck._

Kirill stood before the door to his boss' suite, his teeth clenched together. Last week, he had been contacted by one of Krjutschkow's dogs. That fucker had just been sitting there in his home, waiting for him! He had proposed a trade: Boris' head and the Witch and the KGB would forget about them. Normally, he would have told his boss about it and let him deal with it, but something changed.

It had been like a switch. Just this week, the Witch had started moving and emitting noises! At first no one knew what was happening, but a doctor they had quickly abducted and transported there had told them that the Witch, being the victim of abuse, had just mentally regressed to the point of being a toddler again.

A toddler with the power to unleash Tsar bombs!

His boss wouldn't move her away, he was too confident in his safety, too drunk on success.

He knew how the game of power worked. He could just take his boss' place and move the Witch somewhere far away from here, preferably on the other side of the planet. He could just claim that Boris kept the location of the Witch secret and he didn't know where she was, while the KGB couldn't be sure that he hadn't simply placed her somewhere in Russia, ready to cause another Chernobyl.

He checked his gun again. Satisfied with what he found, Kirill turned the safety off and opened the door to the sight of Boris getting a blow job. By the time the general reacted to the door being opened, the bullet had already penetrated his skull.

* * *

"No." Kirill put away the document and picked up the next one. "Not that one, either."

"Or that one. Or that one."

He was currently looking through a list of candidates for adopting the Witch his contacts had provided.

"Not that one."

The next one, though, got him thinking.

"Husband a Vietnam veteran from the USA, wive a psychologist from Germany. Met her in New York and moved to Berlin with her, married soon after. Hmm... They realized that he was impotent due to the PTSD he has. They wish for a child and have professed that they want to move somewhere out into a village in the middle of nowhere. A father with love to give and a mother to heal her. Perfect!"

From today on, the Witch would not be his problem anymore.

* * *

-X-


End file.
